Heart-Shaped Box
by we were here
Summary: After Curly breaks into a liquor store, Angela and Tim struggle to confront each other and their brother's repercussions. Takes place pre-book.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer- S.E. Hinton owns _The Outsiders_ and Nirvana owns the song _Heart-Shaped Box_.

* * *

Chapter one-

 _She eyes me like a Pisces when I am weak  
_ _I've been locked inside your heart-shaped box for weeks_

He's staring at you.

You focus on the hole that's appeared above the right knee of your black tights, too nervous to meet his eye. It is no bigger than a quarter, the thin material having snagged on the edge of the kitchen counter as you rushed to get ready this morning, but in the silence of the courtroom it seems the most inappropriate.

What should be worse is the sight of your brother, who is sitting next to his state-appointed lawyer in the front. He is wearing an outfit from the county, his left arm in a sling from the fracture he sustained breaking into a liquor store. The tie around his neck is red and sloppily knotted - even you, a _girl,_ could do a better job, you think - and you want to laugh because he looks ridiculous. A little kid trying to play dress-up in his father's clothes.

There are other things, too: How the shadows under his eyes are deep and purple and the bruise on his jawline (from Tim's fist after he was bailed out on the rest of your mother's savings) is an ugly yellow color. You won't notice this until later, when it is too late.

Again.

You flex your cramped toes inside your shoes. They are scuffed and a size too small, loaned to you by Sylvia when you couldn't find yours. The top two buttons on your blouse are loose, which means you have to re-button them every few minutes. Your fifth round of doing this - is that what Tim's looking at? - he reaches out a hand, as if to help you, and then drops it.

You don't blame him for not wanting to get close. You can't remember the last time he hugged you, when he squeezed your shoulder as he walked out of the house, when he said something sarcastic and expected you to smile, just a little. He used to make you smile. He used to make you laugh.

You miss laughing. You miss a lot of things.

Both of you know how this happened, that things like this keep happening - that things like this are out of your control. And now, look where you are.

The judge clears his throat, the sound amplified by the microphone at the edge of his chin. "Would the defendant please rise."

It isn't a question.

For one of the first times in his life, you watch Curly do what he is told. The muscles of his back shift under his dress-shirt as he stands.

 _Do as I say, not as I do_. The eleventh commandment of Saint Tim.

But Curly didn't listen. He never listens _._

Beside you, Tim inhales, as if he is holding his breath, and it reminds you of when Curly fell off that telephone pole, the sudden whiteness of his bone causing you to throw up right there, in front of God and the gas station and Ponyboy Curtis. Then, you thought things couldn't get any worse. But shit, you were wrong, so wrong.

Six months in juvenile hall. With good behavior, he could be out in four, pending approval of the state.

There is a sudden flurry of motion, everyone moving, a blur of color and sound. Images you will replay in your mind when you are laying on your bed, staring up at the ceiling, trying to blink the wetness out of your eyes.

The judge rises from the bench.

The lawyer claps a hand on your brother's shoulder in condolence, says a few words into his ear, the same thing he tells everybody who ends up like this, the families that are left behind to deal with it.

 _It's okay, kid. Mistakes happen._

At least he didn't kill anyone. That's what everyone's been saying, even Sylvia. Like you should be comforted in the fact that it's a good thing he only broke a window, scared a few customers away, drank half a bottle of the whiskey he'd stolen before the cops tackled him in the alleyway. But in your darkest moments, you almost wish he had brought Tim's forty-five with him, just so you could have someone else's pain to focus on rather than your own. It would be so much easier. Everything would be.

The bailiff grabs his elbow roughly and escorts him through the small gate that separates the bench and witness stand from the pews, where you and Tim have sat for the past half-hour. As they pass you, their bodies blur, and you think they are walking too fast; they should slow down, they should let you say goodbye, why can't you -

Tim stands, the displeasure evident on his face, the emotions repressed for so long. He glares at Curly, an infinity of words between them, and you open your mouth to say something, anything.

In the end, nothing comes out.

xxx

 _You're standing in the kitchen when he comes in._

 _You must be six or seven; your head barely grazes over the counter, and you hide behind a chair, watching a pair of denim-clad legs move to the sink._

 _At first, he doesn't see you, the room is too dark. Your back is pressed against the wall, and you try to imagine that you are as small as a ladybug, that if you wrapped your arms around yourself tight enough, you could disappear forever_. Poof.

 _But then his eyes adjust. He turns the faucet off, where he's been running a washcloth under the water, and comes over. He crouches down to you, his nose level with yours, and he smells strange, wrong: of sweat and outside and iron._

 _He reaches for your hand, presses it against his cheek to absorb your warmth. His skin is wet and cold._

" _You should be in bed, lady."_

 _Tears build at the back of your throat. You want to ask him why your mother and her new boyfriend fight so much, why he always leaves after dinner and doesn't come back until the sun has set hours ago, why he is hurting so badly and why he won't let you help him. That's all you've ever wanted to do, all girls like you are good at - helping._

 _You trace his eyebrow with your index finger, and when you pull it away you learn what the scent is: blood. Neither of you know it then, but this is the first time you'll see each other after he's been in a fight, when he is as clear and shallow as a pane of glass._

 _He sighs and pulls you closer. Your forehead rests against his collarbone, his chin balanced on the top of your head. A perfect fit._

xxx

Three days after your brother's sentencing, Tim suggests you get a job.

Actually, 'suggests' is a light word for it. He orders this while you are putting on makeup in your bedroom. Your door is open, and he is leaning against the frame, too stubborn to cross over the line that Curly unexpectedly drew five weeks ago.

You should've known trouble was coming. Too much time had passed between either of them doing something stupid, selfish or reckless, Curly favoring all three.

"Where're you goin'?" he asks.

A pointless question. He doesn't care, never has. As long as you don't come home hitched and pregnant, it doesn't matter where you wind up, whether it be in someone's bed or a gutter.

"Out," you say.

You lean closer to the mirror, focus on your mascara wand as it moves through your upper eyelashes once, twice, three times. Lately you have found yourself repeating activities multiple times, the repetitive motion comforting. If you don't do something more than once, like wash your hands, you feel dirty, as if you've missed dirt that wasn't there.

"Out where?"

While it is a minute change, Curly's absence has caused a ripple in Tim's daily schedule as well. With no one to truly pick on or be irritated by, he has chosen to bother you between Grumpy After a Nap and Kicking Winston's Ass 'Cause He Slashed My Tires, That Sonuvabitch I'm Gonna Kill Him.

Lucky, lucky you.

"Don't matter."

"I'd like to think it does, lady. You ain't eighteen yet, and that means one thing. You live in my house, you live under my rules."

"You're eighteen, and you're still an asshole."

He smirks, the closest he gets to a smile. Sometimes, you wonder if he ever learned how to, if your dad smacked it off. "You need money?"

Always, yes. And always, you lie, "No."

Money's scarce around the house, like the other necessities for survival - food and warmth - but you were raised to not ask for things that should be offered to you. You both know the only reason he is asking you, anyway, is because a shipment just came in, and he feels guilty since he finally can't use it to save your brother. Drug money is fast and dangerous, the chase much better than the reward, and even if he gave you the smallest bill he had, you would be obligated to pay him back.

"You sure?"

"Crystal."

But he never believes you. In the reflection, you see him fold his arms over his chest, trying to figure out where the best place in your room is to hide a twenty-dollar bill without you seeing him do it, obviously.

You reach for your lipstick, unscrew the cap. It's a bright red, like blood, and as you raise it to your mouth you imagine how much of your brother's blood is sprayed across the floor at the liquor store he tried to rob, if pieces of glass from the window he broke are still lodged in his arm.

"You know, you've been sittin' around a lot, Angie."

Tim's question causes you to stop mid-swipe, the lipstick hesitant against your bottom lip.

"It'd be good if you got out of here," he continues. "I can't babysit you when I got my own shit to deal with."

You roll your eyes. Like it's so hard to run a gang; all the boys do is drink and smoke and fight, and when they aren't doing all three, they make shitty drug deals in the back of Buck Merrill's roadhouse, one place of many that Tim has forbid you to go to. Not that you'd ever listen; you do whatever you want, come and go as you please. That was the deal you signed when boys started looking at you funny, when they'd whistle at you as you walked by, try to rub up against you in the hallways at school. You were taught to look out for yourself, that you couldn't trust anyone, that it was better to be alone than to commit to something, someone. Getting close meant getting hurt- if you stayed away, nothing could touch you.

"Then what am I supposed to do?"

"I got an interview for you at the diner, tomorrow at twelve. Don't be late."

He has left no room for questions, for arguing. Frustrated, you watch as he closes the door behind him, the wall between you coming down as quickly as it had gone up.

When you leave for Sylvia's house fifteen minutes later, you aren't surprised to see a folded ten-dollar bill at the bottom of your purse, its creases straight and perfect. Maybe it's been there the whole time, or maybe it's taken you this long to find it, but whatever the reason, you make you make sure to bury it, deep, so it stays out of sight. You don't want another reminder of why you left.

xxx

Inside the diner the next morning, Gracie Hensen is waiting for you.

Gracie is three years older than you - Tim's age - with pale skin and straight brown hair. You don't know much about her, other than the fact that her brother, Greg, is now serving a ten-year sentence for dealing speed over the border. Whether that was on his own doing or your brother's coercion, you've no idea. Whatever the reason, she's had it out for you ever since.

"Shepard," she says in lieu of hello, her voice cool and calm.

You wrinkle your nose at the nickname; you aren't Tim, won't ever be able to live up to the legacy he will one day leave behind, even in death. "It's Angela," you correct her. "I have an interview."

"Right." She blinks. Until now, you didn't notice how big her eyes were, the color of sea grass, and you reach to fix the hem of your skirt, slightly uncomfortable under her gaze. "Stuart's waitin' for you in the back. Last door at the end of the hall."

You find Stuart, the owner, where Gracie said he would be. The door is open, and you knock three times. "Come in," a male voice says.

The guy who owns the diner, Stuart, is sitting at his desk, papers spread across the wood. He is older than you thought, probably in his late fifties, with a beer belly and deep lines around his mouth. He motions for you to sit in the chair across from him, and you do, reminding yourself to cross one leg over the other so that he can't look up your skirt. You might not act like a lady, but you sure as hell know how to come off as one.

"You must be Angela Shepard," he says.

You nod. "Yes, sir."

He leans back in his chair, the hinges squeaking. "Tim your brother?"

"The one and only."

"Owed him a favor a while ago. Thought I'd put it to good use."

You try to think of what, exactly, this complete stranger - a middle-aged man with a picture frame of his smiling daughter and wife next to his elbow - could have owed your drug-dealing brother for. A bag of pot, free of charge, when he couldn't spare the few hundred bucks until the next week? Hot-wiring a stolen car so he could get home in time for his favorite radio program? Help with concealing a dead body in the back freezer?

"He gave me a ride back to Tulsa when I was stranded in Ada," he explains. "Car broke down on the highway, he said I looked like a sorry sonuvabitch waitin' to get hit."

"That's awful nice of him, sir," you reply. Shit, it might be the nicest thing you've heard him do since God knows when. You were right on the money about the car thing, but what was Tim doing all the way out in Ada? It's about a two-hour drive into the middle of nowhere- what's there besides cornfields and Chickasaws?

"Yeah," he agrees. "He don't talk much. I could barely get his name out. How is he?"

Tim, among other things, is notorious for his ten-word speeches. You smile at this. "He's fine. His job is goin' real well."

"Job? What's he doing?"

"Growin' produce," is the best substitute you can finally come up with for marijuana. You cross your fingers, hope Tim will laugh at this later when you mention it to him.

Stuart leans forward, interested. Wrong move. "What kind? My brother-in-law owns a cattle farm in Texas."

"It's edible," you joke, and he smiles, pleased with your answer. For the next half-hour, he informs you about the salary - a dollar twenty-five an hour, a paycheck every two weeks - and what the job involves.

"It ain't so hard," he says at the end. "Might seem like it, but Gracie got the hang of it right quick. Are you able to start today?"

"Sure," you say, slightly surprised. You didn't think it'd be this easy, that he's so willing to stick his neck out for you to eventually walk on. In the next few hours, all that's waiting for you is a dark and silent house - neither of your brothers usually come back until well after you've gone to bed - and your thoughts, and you don't want to face either, not right now.

The least you could do, you tell yourself as you stand up and shake Stuart's hand, is to push them away, at least for a little while longer.

xxx

"Angie-baby, it's really you!"

You look up from the countertop you've been wiping to see Dally Winston slide into a stool.

"Ran into one of Tim's guys," he continues, breathless, as if you really cared why he was bothering you. In the bright lights of the diner, his hair is white, the same color as the apron you're wearing. Other than an old man sitting in a corner booth near the window, he's the only customer. Gracie has just gone on a smoke break, instructing you to not to touch anything until she gets back.

"Winston," you sigh. "What the hell d'you want?"

The last time you'd seen him, it'd been right after Curly was arrested. You were at a party, trying to drink away the mess your brother had made, and he'd walked into an empty bedroom, where you and some random guy - Brian or Brad or Ben - were making out on the bed. At that point, your bra hadn't come off, but it was enough of an embarrassment to sober you up quick.

"Goddamn, it's always a deal with you two, ain't it?" he whistles, looking around the room. "Shit, can't a poor guy get a cup of coffee 'round here or somethin'?"

"Not for free, you can't."

"Fine, fine." He reaches into his jacket pocket and tosses some loose change onto the counter, doesn't bother to count how much it is. Asshole. "Happy now, princess?"

"Ecstatic."

You scowl at him as you pour a cup of coffee and slide it over the counter. He adds milk and sugar, then wraps both hands around the mug and widens his eyes, like you're about to tell him a sappy story or some shit. You don't know why he wants to bother you, of all people in the whole fucking world- let alone how he found out where you were this afternoon- and with each passing moment he's starting to piss you off more and more.

"What?" you finally snap.

"Didn't know it was a crime to stare at your beautiful face."

"You're sick."

"And you're a bitch. Who's more right?"

"I am, 'cause Tim's gonna kick your ass after he hears what you called me."

Dally snorts. "He fight all your battles for you?"

"Only the easy ones."

"I can deal with that." He takes a sip, sets the mug down onto the counter with a clatter so he can stop fucking around and leave you the hell alone. "So, listen, I heard about Curly…"

At the mention of his name, your muscles tense, the air suddenly whooshing out of your lungs. Heat rushes to your cheeks, and you grip the edge of the counter so you don't collapse onto the ugly linoleum floor.

When you speak next, your voice comes out shaky-sounding, how it is right before you start to cry. Which you never do: cry. Shepards don't cry, don't show any other emotion besides hate or ignorance. "I can't talk about this right now, Dally."

His face falls, the amusement gone. Surely he wasn't expecting this reaction from you, the instant denial, and blinks, trying to process the information. "Shit," he says finally, dumbfounded, "I was just wonderin' how Tim's handlin' it, is all."

He isn't handling it, you want to - need to say - although you can't, because that would be admitting the fact that your brother is weak and so are you. That you both are not made of stone and are in fact bendable, breakable, affected by the tornado that tore straight through the middle of your house.

Instead, you squeeze the washcloth that's in your hand, the excess water dripping down your wrist like blood. Your chin is shaking and you realize Tim is right when he says that frowning hurts less, he is always right and you are always wrong and why don't you ever listen to him? Why didn't Curly ever listen to him?

"He's fine," you tell Dally, and the words are so swift and deep it feels like you've been punched in the stomach.

 _I've been drawn into your magnetar pit trap trap  
_ _I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black_


	2. Chapter 2

_My black eye casts no shadow  
_ _Your red eye sees no blame_

At the end of the night, Gracie invites you to a party her boyfriend, Mark, is having at his house.

"You can ride with me, if you want," she says as she shows you how to close up the diner. The lock on the front door is broken, but Stuart doesn't have enough money to replace it right now, so a thick piece of wood has to be jimmied into the door handles to keep them from moving.

You bite down on the inside of your cheek, thinking of how upset, furious even, Tim will be when he learns you went out, without his consent or knowledge, especially after what Curly got himself into.

But you can't take care of Tim, too. You have to take care of yourself first; that's the number-one rule, the most important, the one he has always told you not to break. And the events from earlier in the day - Dally Winston showing up out of nowhere and the reminder of how deep a mess your family is in - have left you shaken, and you need something, or someone, to take your mind off of it.

"I will," you say, and the wood slides into place, as if confirming this.

Twenty minutes later, you are in the passenger seat of Gracie's car, driving through a dark neighborhood on the edge of town. The windows are down, the radio on low, and a light breeze is causing your hair to whip across your face. It is the end of summer; in a few weeks, you will be occupied by school and senior boys and trying to sneak cigarettes with Sylvia in the stairwell in between classes, and none of this will matter.

The car slows as you approach a stop sign and turn right, Gracie's headlights arcing across the corner house's front lawn and then disappearing into foliage. Unlike the other streets, this one dead-ends into a large white clapboard house, possibly the biggest you've ever seen, with shutters, people pouring out of the front door and onto the wraparound porch. When you pull up and Gracie cuts the engine, the abrupt silence muffled by party noises, the first word you think of is _expensive_ , and the second is _Soc_.

A tightness forms in your chest, and you close your eyes, trying to calculate how far it will take you to run and find a payphone so your brother can come and pick you up. You've never been to a west side's party, are afraid that everyone will instantly recognize you for not belonging there, the discomfort in the atmosphere tangible and heavy. In their eyes you are nothing but dirt, an accomplice to wrongdoings, a stain on a suit that can't be washed out.

"Angela?"

Gracie's voice is muffled by the glass. She has materialized outside your door and is staring at you, puzzled. You swallow down the lump that has been in your throat since Curly stood up in that courtroom and his repercussions fell on your shoulders, the penance you cannot carry on your own.

When you get out of the car you notice that the temperature has dropped, goose-bumps rising on your bare arms as you follow her up the front walk and through the front door. Inside the house, it is dark and crowded and hot, the rooms dimly lit with candles or a couple of lamps. Lately you've been finding that you are glad for the shadows, how you can move so fluidly between them.

Gracie pushes open a door and you stumble into the empty kitchen. The bright light hurts your eyes, and as your pupils adjust you notice her filling two cups with beer from the keg on the counter. When she passes one to you, her eyes widen slightly, and you turn around to see what she is surprised about.

"Sam," she says in the same tone she greeted you with earlier that day - stiff and detached, her world encased in a perfect glass bubble.

"Sam, I am," the guy replies. He's cute, with dark eyes and cropped brown hair and an easy smile that bears overconfidence. You shouldn't be intimidated by this stranger, embarrassed by your boring outfit - an old skirt and shirt that's seen better days. Hell, your brother is a fucking gang leader, yet there's something in the way this Sam guy looks at you, bemused, like he's already seen right through your bullshit, and it makes you shiver.

"Where's Mark?"

Gracie picks up a piece of her hair, twists it around her finger. She does this a lot, almost like it's a defense mechanism. "Last time I saw him, he was with Jake."

Sam snorts, dissatisfied with her response. Already his attention is drifting away, towards wherever Mark is, and it reminds you of Dally's reaction earlier, when you had told him Tim was fine, just fine.

"Who's your friend, Gracie?" Sam asks, drawing you back to the present.

You let her answer for you. "Her name's Angela."

"Pretty name for a pretty girl."

"So I've been told," you say, then take a sip of your beer. You're glad that it is lukewarm, how it is at every party you go to on your side of town, the one familiarity in all of the strangeness. For a while, you listen to Gracie and Sam talk before she makes an excuse about going off to find her boyfriend.

"So," Sam says to you as the door swings shut behind her, leaving the two of you alone, "how do you know Gracie?"

"We work together. Our brothers go awhile back."

"How so?"

You take a big sip, the fizz sitting at the back of your mouth. "It's personal."

"Personal," he echoes, and maybe on the rich side of town, everybody's history is open, public, ready for grabs. The more gossip, the better. "Nothin's like that. Everything always comes out, one way or another."

"I think you're wrong."

He raises his eyebrows. "Oh, yeah?"

The next few moments are so fast, looking back on them they are a blur. You smirk, taking a step towards him, about to explain, and as you do so his fingertips graze your shoulder, his touch burning and as light as the wind. Then he smiles at you, as if he was expecting you to come to him the entire ten minutes you've known each other, and his teeth are white and perfect and sharp- they make you want to know what they feel like against your skin, your jawline, your neck.

When he guides you back out into the party, even more people have arrived. The house, which seemed so big and vast when you entered it, is now cramped and a thousand degrees hotter, as if a fire has been lit under the foundation. You smell sweat and perfume and the distant scent of skunk, a tuft of blue smoke floating towards the ceiling. Someone has a lit a joint near the stairs, and you don't protest as Sam rounds the corner of the banister, taking the first step, the second.

On the landing, he turns his head, his jaw catching the light. There is a question in his eyes, one you've been asked too many times, and you recognize it as the same glance Tim gave you in the courtroom three days ago, when you finally learned that there was no light at the end of the tunnel, that instead it was just a long, long fall into the dark.

As you grab Sam's hand, squeezing it, you look back over your shoulder at the party and noise you have left behind. In the crowd, you see a flash of pale skin - Gracie - standing at the bottom of the stairs, and a guy with blonde hair, Mark, standing next to her, his hand curled around her back. Not for the first time today, she's frowning, and it makes you think of your mother, who made that face each time one of your brothers disappointed her.

But this time it's different, you want to tell her. This time, Curly's the one in jail. _He's_ the one that's suffering, not you or Tim or anyone else. That's rule number two: Shepards don't suffer. And if they do, they sure as shit don't talk about it.

You can handle it. Can't you?

xxx

" _Hello?"_

" _Ang? It's me."_

 _Strangely he sounds tinny, distant, and you press the receiver harder against your ear so you can hear his voice. "Tim? Where the hell are you?"_

 _He should've been back hours ago; a quick glance at the clock above the sink in the kitchen confirms it is nearly two o'clock in the morning. You're the only one home, the sound of the telephone ringing at first an imagination as you walked down the stairs. Curly is staying over at a friend's house for the night, your mother gone for the weekend to visit a cousin in Topeka._

" _I'm at… the hospital."_

" _Hospital?" The word takes a moment to seep in, and then you are wide-awake, a current of electricity shot through your body. "Why? What happened?"_

" _I can't…" he wheezes, and the rest of his sentence is cut off by coughing. "I need you to… come get me. Please."_

 _When you get to the hospital, you leave the car engine running and sprint through the emergency-room doors, your heart thundering against your chest so hard you think it'll pop out. You raced through three red lights, cut off a truck, hit the curb as you turned into the hospital parking lot too fast, the wheels skidding across the pavement._

 _Your eyes scan the waiting room and finally spot him sitting in a chair in the corner, his clothes disheveled and bloody. His nose is swollen and bruised, there are shallow cuts on his forehead, and gauze is pressed to his left cheek._

" _Forty fuckin' stitches," he grimaces, pointing to the gauze, as if that suddenly explains everything._

 _You roll your eyes. "Who did it?"_

 _He looks away, at the glowing red EXIT sign above the sliding doors. "Don't matter," he says, but he doesn't understand how much it does._

xxx

"You should stay."

"I can't."

You shift towards the edge of the bed, grab your bra that's been tossed onto the floor. Outside the window there is the sound of birds chirping, the drone of a lawn mower, and you wonder how so much can change in one night, a single decision, and life just keeps going on, an endless cycle. You want to get out of it, sometimes, but you wouldn't know how- you're too far in to back out now.

He touches your waist, his palm flush against your stomach. "Don't go."

But you do. You never stay. You've been left enough.

xxx

When you get home, Tim is waiting in the living room.

You don't meet his gaze as you set your purse on the coffee table, fold yourself into the armchair by the window. Five feet away he sits on the couch, and you can feel his rage in the air, thick and heavy as cement. It is massive, bigger than the house, possibly the world.

He hasn't been this upset since Curly almost ran the neighbor's dog over when he backed up into their front lawn. More than anything, you want him to look at the bruises Sam left on your neck, your swollen mouth, the makeup smeared under your eyes, because he hasn't really seen you in weeks. You are there, right in front of him, and he has been staring at an empty wall, another person, an endless stretch of highway.

But he doesn't. He can't open his eyes; they've been shut for too long.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, Angela?" he says. You had expected him to yell at you, and he is not, which makes everything so much worse. "I was sick about you the whole night, fuckin' sick. After what Curly did, you think you can go off and…" He shakes his head, disgusted.

You see in his eyes that he wants to hit you, can imagine the crush of bone against your face, startling and then stinging and then numb. (And you would try to hit him back, but it would be sloppy because of the tears in your eyes, an elbow catching his ribcage or a few fingertips brushing his jaw- weak, defenseless- and you would reach for him just as he reached for you and you would collapse into each other, like you should've done a month ago, years ago, when you weren't afraid to admit that you needed him and he needed you, and he never asks for anything, why can't he just -)

"Fuckin' talk to me, goddammit," he says, and his voice is hoarse and you just want him to shut the fuck up because you've had enough blame put on your shoulders, you've had enough of having enough. Maybe he wasn't lying- maybe he really _was_ worried about you. But what does it matter? He'll be done with you as soon as you give him the green light. That's how it is, how it's always been. He can't go changing shit now, the patterns have been developed- it's too late for him to act all Big Brother on you. He doesn't deserve to.

You look down at the floor- its uneven floorboards, the dark identifiable stain near your right foot, barely hidden beneath the area rug.

"I don't know," you start, then stop. Clear your throat, try again. "I'm sorry."

Yet it is not enough, it is never enough, because he lifts his chin and stands up. He walks away, his back straight, and you are left alone, again.

He is always the first to leave, always forces you to watch. Rule number three.

xxx

"Ang?"

Another soggy French fry hits your arm, leaves a greasy trail down your wrist.

"What?" you say to Sylvia.

You are sitting across each other in a corner booth at The Dingo, which is crowded because it's Friday night and there isn't anything else to do in Tulsa besides drinking shitty beer at a drag-race on the Strip and turning down sleazy guys at the drive-in. She's in the middle of detailing another break-up with Dally, who- you realize, a beat late- came into the diner the other day to see if he could get some advice from you on how to win her back. Gross.

You smirk at her, try to act like you've been listening to her the whole fifteen minutes you've been here, when in fact you've only thought about Tim, how mad you have made him. "So, what are you gonna do?"

"I don't know." She swirls another fry into the mountain of ketchup on the edge of her plate. "I wanna give him another chance, but -"

"But what?" a male voice behind you echoes, and then Dally is sliding into the booth next to her, nuzzling his face into her neck, and you want to throw up for the third time that day. When Sylvia sighs, like it's too much of an effort to push him away and turns her head to meet his gaze, you look away from them, through the window at the parking lot.

Panic fills your stomach as you think of what Tim is doing, if he is out looking for you or if he's given up for the night. You hope he's not home when Sylvia drops you off, that you will see him in the morning, after he's cooled off and found something new to bitch about. A shiver runs through you, and you pull your sweater tighter around your shoulders.

"Sylvie," you say, interrupting her and Dally's make-up makeout. "I'm not feelin' too good. Can we go?"

Sylvia pulls away from Dally, surprised. "Oh," she says, looking from you to him, dazed. "Are you sure? You didn't eat nothin'."

"I have to work early tomorrow," you tell her, the first true sentence you've told her all night. She knew something was up as soon as you got into her car earlier, but you haven't said what it was, didn't think you needed to. Some things go without saying.

"Call me," she says to Dally, who pops a fry into his mouth, then slides out of the booth. You follow her out the door and into the parking lot, where the lights have turned on, the mosquitos fluttering in the beams.

"Ang?" she says, after you've been driving for a few minutes in silence. "Are you okay?"

"I don't know," you say, and lean your forehead against the window, the glass cold on your skin, your tears hot as they roll down your cheeks.

xxx

" _It's not forever."_

" _It feels like it."_

" _You won't even know I was gone."_

 _Over the past few weeks, he has been trying to do everything for you that he can while he is still here, and you should appreciate his efforts, take them for what they are. All you can think about- all you've_ been _thinking about- is that court room: its stiff wooden benches, the noise that came out of your mother's throat when he passed you, shackles on his wrists and ankles, the sound of your nightmares._

 _You are so tired. You haven't slept for days; when you close your eyes, you see that line on his face, the cut on his lip that caused it to swell. The scar is red and twisted and ugly, snaking from his left temple down to his jawline, and you imagine his skin tearing, blood spilling into his mouth. The stitches will be removed a week after he arrives in McAlester._

 _But you will know that he is gone. You will stare at his toothbrush in the mornings as you wash your face, waiting for him to knock on the bathroom door, always so goddamn impatient. He will not sit across from you at dinner, will not let you borrow his jacket when you say you are cold because the heater has broken, when really you just want a piece of him to hold on to._

 _He gets off your bed, the moment broken, and you want to grab his t-shirt, the waistband of his jeans, tug him back onto the mattress and never let him leave. "You should write to me- Ma has the address. And I'll call once a week. C'mon, Ang, don't worry about me. I'll be fine."_

 _He is trying to compress ninety-three miles into an hour, a year into one day. Like it is that easy, like all you have to do is believe him. But you're not a kid anymore- it doesn't work like that._

" _You won't be fine," you tell him, and he half-smiles, as if he already knew this. As he presses his thumb against your temple, tucking a piece of your hair behind your ear, his touch reminds you of everything you've ever lost, and all of what you have left to lose._

 _Your slaps don't stick  
_ _Your kicks don't hit  
_ _So we remain the same_


End file.
